The Shell & The Sea
by Vaudevillain
Summary: Ralph gets closer to Simon only to have him snatched away. RalphSimon.


**The Shell & The Sea**

Ralph hacked away at the branches of a nearby palm with his penknife, the broad green leaves swaying violently as they fell to the ground. Wisps of sand brushed against Ralph's legs, tickling his bare skin. He was naked except for his navy blue shorts, cut from his uniform's pants. Ralph's bare stomach and chest gleamed with sweat and his back was covered in patches of sand. Standing up, he brushed a dirty hand through his blonde, sweaty hair and examined his work. The shelter was slowly coming into being, the frame of sturdy branches now being covered by the long stalks of palms.

Ralph was alone. The rest of the boys had gone to laze by the lagoon or play in the shallows of the beach. Ralph didn't mind though, it gave him a chance to relax, where he wasn't constantly bombarded with questions or drowned in Jack's cynicism. Relaxation time on an island filled with six year olds was a rare blessing.

Gazing out at the ocean, waves slowly rolling in, Ralph felt his breathing come into sync with the each crash on the white sand beach. Stabbing his knife into the nearest branch, Ralph took a few steps out of the shade, his toes digging deep into the hot sand. Stretching, his taught muscles shifting under tanned freckled skin, Ralph caught sight of something just out of the corner of his eye. Turning quickly, though not quickly enough to suggest mistrust, he saw Simon's slender form materialize out of the dense underbrush like a ghost. Ralph didn't smile, he merely cocked his head quizzically.

Simon rarely approached him alone.

Simon rarely approached him at all.

A faint smile was etched on Simon's beautiful plum lips. His dark tanned body sported a number of scratches, most likely from his ventures through the jungle. But even the cuts couldn't hide the aura of strength resonating from his lean body. Ralph was suddenly struck with a sensation that the other boy was much older than his twelve years.

It was only when Simon's smooth body invaded Ralph's personal space did he realize that he was holding out his closed hand. Ralph looked at him appraisingly as he stretched out his own hand to receive it. Into his hand fell a smooth, cream coloured shell. Ralph looked at it curiously. The flawless shell was shaped precisely like a heart with dark beige lines encircling it like rings on a tree.

As Ralph looked up to thank him, Simon had already disappeared back into the forest and Ralph was left to dwell on his strange, new feelings.

- - -

The setting sun stained the white sand pumpkin orange and fiery red, matching the colours of the dancing flames on the beach perfectly. Jack had caught a pig, which was now being roasted over the curling flames.

As the sun descended beyond the horizon, it seemed that the darker it was the wilder the children became. Filled with an insatiable bloodlust and exhilaration that seemed to have been spawned by the pig's death, the hunters began painting themselves with blood and charcoal. Red under the eyes, black along the cheekbones, lines of blood across the collarbones and streaks of black stretching down their sweating bodies. Even Ralph found it hard to resist being caught up in the tribalism and soon he too began smearing blood and soot across his young body. Soon they began to chant and laugh and run around the fire, like so many savages. Faster and faster and louder they chanted. They jumped around the fire, whooping and hollering throwing sand in the air losing all self-control. Faster they circled, mesmerized by the fire and by the lust coursing through their veins like blood. Their bodies moved and flowed rhythmically, with a certain elegance that puberty had not yet stripped away. Ralph felt dizzy and light-headed by he didn't care. Nothing mattered anymore.

"The beast!" Ralph heard a young boy scream, his profile illuminated by the fire, pointing towards an opening in the jungle where a black form emerged quickly, running towards the group of boys. The hunters started screaming, not screams of terror or fright but screams of pure rage and desire for pain. Filled with a fiery bloodlust, they grabbed their nearby spears and ran towards the creature, screaming with only one thought.

Kill.

Ralph joined them. Ralph screamed with the rest of them. Ralph was consumed by what felt like an internal fire, a fire that could never be extinguished.

It was mere seconds before the creature met the group of screaming boys. Ralph thought he heard the creature yell something, but he didn't care. It wasn't important. He thrust his spear towards the dark shape of the beast and felt the satisfying sensation of his spear puncturing flesh and warm blood on his legs.

"Stop! Ralph! STOP!" Piggy yelled, running over with a torch in his hand.

The fire in Ralph's gut was replaced with pure ice as the light from the torch showed Simon's golden skin ripped and shredded and spattered with blood. His youthful face was unmarked though, and his shimmering hazel eyes were closed. It gave the scene a sort of calm finality, as if he hadn't been slaughtered in cold blood. It seemed more as if he had simply closed his eyes and never awoken again.

Ralph sunk to his knees, his bloody spear forgotten. Tears fell from his beautiful eyes fell onto Simon's gentle face, mingling with blood. Pressing his forehead to Simon's smooth cheek, Ralph cried. After a few minutes his hand slowly rose from the sand and touched Simon's soft, pale lips instinctively. There was fleeting warmth in them, and Ralph felt as if for a second that Simon might not be dead, that he might stand up again and brush off the whole evening as some terrible joke. As these thoughts crossed Ralph's mind though, he felt the remaining warmth drain from Simon's lips.

In the shocked silence, he hadn't heard the rest of the boys return to the fire solemnly and Ralph continued to cry over Simon's body alone.

- - -

Over the next few days Ralph rarely emerged from his hut. He refused drink and eat and only came out of his tent to bathe alone, as if to wash the stain of Simon's death from his golden body. Ralph rarely said anything, instead spending his time staring off at the horizon. But the sunsets no longer held magic in Ralph's eyes. Rescue was no longer a priority. Fruit and meat was no more than ash in his mouth. There was only one thing Ralph could think about; the brown-haired, hazel-eyed, freckled boy he had considered his friend.

It was a few days after Simon's death and Ralph lay in his hut. He was stretched out, his head resting on a pile of soft ferns that tickled his ear gently. He stared at the ceiling of the small hut but didn't actually looking at anything in particular. Ralph tried in vain to remember the last thing Simon had said to him before he had died but it seemed as if the harder Ralph tried to remember, the faster the ghost of the words slipped through his fingers.

Turning on his side, Ralph spotted a folded leaf in the corner of the hut. Grasping it gently, he delicately peeled the dried leaf away and a cream coloured shell fell into Ralph's dirty hand. Ralph looked at it sadly, remembering the instance Simon had placed the cream shell onto Ralph's hand. It seemed so long ago now, in an age long past. Ralph had changed since then. He had become a murderer. A murderer of potentially the only person on this island he had loved.

He placed the shell on his chest, the milky colour contrasting heavily with Ralph's golden tanned body, and sighed. He watched as the shell rose up and down with each of his breaths and he smiled so faintly it was as if he had forgotten how to smile. The simplicity of the action seemed utterly juvenile, but it brought Ralph the most joy he had experienced since Simon's death. Since he had killed Simon.

Ralph brought the shell up to his lips and gently kissed it. It felt cold and smooth and he was painfully reminded of Simon's lips, drained of colour and life.

It was as if the memory of Simon charged Ralph's memory, and he suddenly felt his eyes fill with tears as he remembered Simon's last words to him.

"Don't worry, everything will be fine."


End file.
